


Strength, Thy Name is Woman

by song_of_orpheus



Series: Orpheus does Les Mis Ladies' Week 2018 [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, I imagined this in the 70s/80s but honestly it doesn't really matter, Jean Valjean is mentioned but not named, Les Mis Ladies Week 2018, Poverty, Sadness and hope, Though you can picture shoulder pads and bell-bottomed jeans if you want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 20:56:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15614832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/song_of_orpheus/pseuds/song_of_orpheus
Summary: Day One of Les Mis Ladies Week 2018.Prompt: StarsJeanne Valjean has lost her husband and brother in the space of a year. The flat is lonely, always, and full, always. So many children would weary anyone, as much as she loves them. She does not wish upon stars, but they can offer her strength.





	Strength, Thy Name is Woman

It’s midnight, and the small town seems to hang on threads of ash from the sky, and Jeanne Valjean is crying.

 

She’s quiet about it, of course. She mustn’t wake the little ones now, or she’ll never get to sleep. But there, by the window, the air is far too thick upon her skin, and it wrenches the water from her very spine. She does not feel a strong woman, though other women in the town have called her that as comfort. Panic blurs her mind, pushed down and further down for the sake of her own. Move, and she’ll collapse; stay, and she’ll fall inside herself again.

 

Rubbing at her face, the ring on her finger is cold, impossibly cold. It’s stained by now – they could never afford gold in the first place – and seems warped to her flesh. A brand. She tries to focus on it, use it to power her aching self the way she must, but everything is too cold and dark and lonely right now for that. Blurred to neon, Jeanne focuses on the way the starlight shines upon it.

 

Her brother’s bed is full, of course. There’s no time for grief. No space to spare. The cupboards have gaping empty mouths and she thinks of her children.

 

God, what can she do?

 

Forgetting and suffering war beneath her scalp, and a sob crests deep in her throat. Her knuckles flash lighting upon the windowsill, knees bowing like splintered oak.

 

She will not think about her husband in the earth. She will not think about her brother in chains. She presses the hope of her children – all seven – tight against her mind, presses the image of starlight into her eyes. Swimming indigo shifting into white fury above. Starlight.

 

Sometimes, she wishes she could believe in God. Some of the children do. Some of the other poor do, even. Perhaps even she does, when she needs to. Jeanne is a practical woman; she will protect herself and her family however she can. God does not come into it.

 

Shouts clatter against her window frames, coarse as hailstones. This is not known as a safe part of town, not by the white women who peer at her windows and sniff at her laundry. Stuff them. This is where she can live, and protect her children from whatever is on the streets, and nurture a home as best she can. She will not let hate through their flat door.

 

Noisy footsteps ache across the floor, and she turns away from the window to clasp her daughter to her chest. The shouts from behind her stammer and waver like white noise. It’s one of the middle ones – only five. Her eyes turn liquid against Jeanne’s shoulder, hair in buns, skin paler than her mothers and rosed by tears.

 

“What’s wrong? You shouldn’t be up this late.” She can’t keep the chiding out of her voice.

 

“Can’t sleep now. Noise. Shouting.” A ragged sniff – they need more tissues. “Too scared. Others are asleep, mostly.”

 

Jeanne catches the sigh before it leaves her lips. “Come on. Crying won’t help,” she whispers, then tries to soften herself. “I’ll keep you safe, my love. I promise.”

 

“What about Uncle?”

 

Forests unseen creek in the shadows of the kitchen before she answers, cupboards fattening into oak trees. Her father, the woodsman, grinning from the doorway. Her brother has no expression on his face.

 

This won’t do. She can’t be scared with a family to protect. She turns to take in the stars for a moment, feel them between her fingers, let them wick to a flame inside her chest.

 

“He’ll find his way. We always do, us lot.” She strokes the fuzzy hairs around her daughter’s temple and kisses her briefly above her eyebrow. The little girl bunches her hands tight around her mother’s neck, but her breathing steadies some.

 

“How?”

 

Jeanne wonders for a moment. The little ones will wake up soon – they always do in the middle of the night – and she wants to cherish this small grace of silence while she can. So she points her daughter towards the window and stitches the stars together for her.

 

“He’ll follow those, just like us.”

 

The heavy hollering outside has melted into thin ink-darkness. She doesn’t know the names of the stars or the constellations; she’s never had time for that. So, in the bruised yellow light from the hallway, she makes them up. Her words sketch new stories into the silver bones, flesh them out with dreams both like and unlike her own. That tale, and all the others she tells that night and every other, is gentle. It’s full of those who look like her, who love like her brother, people who fight and win against tempests or ants.

 

And in the story, she buries pride within her children’s hearts.

 

Jeanne Valjean will not teach them shame.

 

By the time she’s through with stories, the youngest ones have woken a half dozen times that night, the others are cuddled round in the kitchen, and the stars and screeches outside have faded. Starlight pulses beneath her skin. Her daughter clasps what was her wedding ring between her small palms, and the light smudges there sleepily.

 

The sunrise slumbers yet, but dawn blows cigarette-smoke blue across the sky. Jeanne breathes softly, purposefully. She can protect her family. She can protect herself. She doesn’t need the stars.


End file.
